Thursday, March 15, 2012

"You're as narcissistic as a Daffodil,"
The self-made expert ridiculed, "stay with
Daisies, friend." "You don’t deserve Forsythia,
You bootless one-eyed churl..."
"I suppose you are that squalid soul
Who still believes in Orchids." And so
They lined up in a row to be made sad work of:
The fat-witted who liked Adder’s Tongue,
The rattle-brained who fancied Creeping Beauty,
The sleeveless chuckle-heads who were not afraid
To give allegiance to a Bluebell,
The puzzle-brained who craved Delphinium
Like quenchless extortionate swine,
The meretricious sonofabitches who gormandized
Gummy Gardenia or Hairless Fleabane,
Uncultivated jakes and unregenerate bamboozlers all.
Good Friday Grass? “Don’t put your talent on a napkin”
Dog’s Mercury? “Hidebound lickpenny as dull as ditchwater ”
Hibiscus or Hyacinth? “Such buckram foppery,
Soidistant coxcombry, van winkle dandy doodlery”
"You talk a good Bearded Iris
But you put the saddle on the wrong horse,
Aimed at a pigeon and killed a crow,
Threw a stone in your own garden,
Grabbed the wrong pig by the tail."
Talk of Ranunculus, on the other hand, "overshot the mark."
“The wooden spoon philisters call Amaryllis
Jersey Whites, swain and slatterns know them as
Belladonna Lilies, but only a
Mephistophelean megalomaniac such as yourself
Would dare the Naked Lady sobriquet.”
“Oh you wooly-headed arbiter elegantiarum,
You mad Corinthian, Linneaeus settled this mess
Once and for all, it is lycoris squamigera
To all but unreconstituted dilettantes.”
“Wrong again you bookless smatterer
The unimpeachable ex officio sous tous les rapports
True term is brunsvigia josephinae
Unless you are so sensitive to pink a Ragwort
Turns to Himalayan Cowslip.”
“Oh you’re so light on your feet, like a Bellflower,
Palatially garish in the best bib and tucker.”
“The saucebox wants snuffing, you strait handed crib,
For mentioning Squirrel Corn and Yellow Tack-Stem.”
“Avaricious skinflint sparking Azure Bluets
Too apathetic to even realize the approach of your own
Metastasizing corruption.”
“Stinking Rogerers should take a long drop
From a short rope.” “May the Coltsfoot cult be
Torn up by rusty shears and fed to gophers.”
“How long have you Lupine parasites
Been closet pedophiliacs?” “How easily
The Wake Robin leads you to your slaughter!”
“You were cankered with the ooze of softer feelings
To insinuate Black-Eyed Susans half-cocked
You pertinacious whoreson with your gasconading
Magniloquence.” “Such shallow profundity for
Barbados Cherry…” “wide-wasting man millinery…”
“Envenomed puppyism at its most shameful,
Ill-nurtured, reechy and mucid.”
“A Buttercup Anenome won’t save the draggle-
Tailed pettifogging blackguard of a deep dye.”
“Spare me your mendacious yahoos for Dewberry
You’re making bricks without straw, extracting
Sunbeams from cucumbers, catching weasels asleep.”
“Your contempt-dripped asides for Lesser Celandine
Is worthy of a sea king, scurrilous peculators,
Magsmen, thimbleriggers, skittle sharpers,
Foot pads, spielers, sandbaggers, blacklegs.”
“And the good old Gillyflower like a peccant
Leprous rash – so beautiful! – the purulent
Caboodle of unwiped scabbery, you!”
“Your paltering excuses for the Philadelphia Lily,
Perfectly irremissible, irreclaimable, iniquitous,
Misbegotten…” “ and your hoarse rendition
Of the Bonfire Tree a seedy argument worn right to the stump,
Purseproud, dry as dust, malignantly dishonest…”
"Your Trout Lily logic is airtight as an attic…”
“You cut blocks with a razor when you whispered
Snowflake…” “I abhor the way you wave Wisteria
Over the proceedings like a censor.” “You’re better than Scilla
You supercilious cur.” “Your baleful versus
Of Dracula Crocuses are much too Oxfordian tragic.”
“Don’t pretend the torments of Tantalus over
Evening Primrose or the Early-Star-of-Bethlehem either…”
"Of all the disputatious coggery, the mummery
With borrowed plumes, I can't surmise a Bloodroot
From your turnip, you strained it at a gnat
And swallowed a camel there." "Enough
Of your craven cozenings you suppositious stooge,
Covetous of Missionbells, one-sided, double-hearted..." "Your
White Dwarf Trillium is as rotten as a pear
Yet gaudy as a Tulip.” And so it went on
‘Til one day a woman dropped by the board,
Implored them to love, to not be so cruel,
At which, the men became more serious,
Taking their special razors out of their boxes
The ones that cut deeper, right to the bone,
The skin of others til they feel enough pain.